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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/30130080">Land, Ho: Departing the Salt Rise</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_Banshee/pseuds/Writing_Banshee'>Writing_Banshee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dungeons &amp; Dragons (Roleplaying Game)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, Swashbuckler</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-19</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 11:48:38</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,098</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/30130080</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writing_Banshee/pseuds/Writing_Banshee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Harding, a half-elf swashbuckler rogue, is done with a life at sea. (Based on my original D&amp;D character from a recent campaign)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Land, Ho: Departing the Salt Rise</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Harding paused at the top of the gangplank and hoisted their knapsack onto a shoulder. They couldn’t resist jingling the small coin purse — their wages for this eight-month duty on board the Salt Rise.<br/>They caught Rory’s eye, and the quartermaster winked. “Don’t spend it all on hats.”<br/>Harding opened their eyes wide. “Who, me?” At Rory’s chuckle, Harding shrugged and grinned at the grizzled woman. “Anyway, this’ll barely buy even one really good hat.”<br/>Laughing, Rory saluted and turned back to her tallies. Harding was one of the first crew members off the ship this morning, and Rory had other wages to pay out.<br/>It had been a long eight months. Harding was grateful for the Salt Rise, the first proper pirate ship they’d been on since Captain Mugora died. Most of the intervening years had been filled with rough seas, figuratively and literally. Harding was small and looked younger than their years, and on some ships physical size and strength meant rank. On those ships, the young and small were targets or tools, or both.<br/>Captain Mugora had been different. She had been only Harding’s second captain, and it was Harding’s good luck to land on her ship after sneaking away from The Kelp Road.</p><p>* * *</p><p>“Well, you’re a scrawny one.” Despite her words, the woman’s voice sounded amused, and Harding risked raising their gaze. Before them stood a human, the tallest human Harding had ever seen, with golden-brown skin and grey hair bound into a tangled mass of thin braids and twists. Despite the grey hair, Harding thought she looked young, the wrinkles around her eyes signifying years of squinting into the wind, rather than old age.<br/>“Ma’am,” Harding ventured, then corrected, “Captain.” The big woman wore no insignia, like most crew members on non-military vessels, but the air of authority she wore was more clear than any badge or medallion.<br/>“Who gave you that shiner?”<br/>“Ma’am?”<br/>The tall woman bent forward and pursed her lips. “The black eye.”<br/>“Bar brawl,” Harding lied.<br/>The woman nodded and straightened, but what she said was, “Like hell.” She put her hands on her broad hips. “What are you doing on my ship?”<br/>So she was the captain! Harding levered themself to their feet and saluted. “Looking for work, ma’am.”<br/>“Powder monkey or cabin boy?”<br/>“Whatever work you have, captain,” Harding replied promptly, adding, “But those would both be a waste of my talents.”<br/>“Oh, they would, eh?” The woman laughed. “You’ve got cheek, anyhow. What ‘talents’ are you bringing to the Foam-Flower?”<br/>Harding straightened. This was firm ground. “Lookout, ma’am, I inherited my mother’s keen sight.” They turned their head just enough to show off the elvish ears. “And rigger. I can climb like an ape.”<br/>The captain eyed her in silence, and Harding, nervous again, went on, “But of course I’d be honored to run any errands or service the cannons on a ship such as this.” They added, a fraction of a second too late, “Captain.” It was forgetting such niceties as titles and honorifics that had earned them their stripes, not once but twice, aboard the Kelp Road.<br/>“As it happens, I need a rigger,” the captain said, but when Harding opened their mouth with a smile, she held up a hand and continued, “but I don’t generally hire on someone at that rank from off-ship. I don’t suppose you have a reference?”<br/>Harding closed their mouth and shook their head. The captain reached out to touch a calloused finger to the edge of their bruised eye and nodded. “I wouldn’t have thought so.”<br/>She sighed. “Let’s see you, then. Up to the crow’s nest and back.”<br/>Harding grinned, then winced when the puffy, purple skin on their cheekbone stretched with it. “Back before you can catch the direction of the wind, ma’am.”<br/>“I doubt it,” the captain said, but she was smiling. Harding didn’t wait to read any more of her reaction.<br/>They scurried to the mast. Already barefoot, they launched themself off the deck and scrambled up to the first yard, catching the loose mesh of rope that hung from the upper yard. They were in their element here, and they never paused as they climbed, the wind — even here in port — fresh in their hair.<br/>At the upper yardarm, they swung to their feet in one smooth motion, and walked across to the mast, balancing without grabbing any of the lines. That was just showing off, but showing off seemed to be called for just now. At the mast, Harding took hold of a line and climbed hand-over-hand to the crow’s nest, ignoring the ladder-like pegs in the mast. The lookout, watching their approach, winked and saluted.<br/>“Tally-ho,” Harding said, returning the wink, and they stepped off into open space.<br/>Gasps arose from the deck, and Harding grabbed a line, wincing at the burn. “Gloves,” they whispered to themself. But their grip held, after the first burning slide, and then they swung down to the lower yard. They balanced momentarily, releasing the line, and grabbed another one, the guideline, which swung them down to the deck.<br/>The landing was rougher than they’d like — probably the lack of food over the past few days hadn’t helped their balance, but it was good enough. They only stumbled, didn’t fall, and then bowed with a flourish, aware they had an audience of everyone on deck. And that audience applauded. Only a handful of crew, all told, but just one of importance.<br/>That one did not applaud, and Harding risked looking up at her.<br/>Only then, when she caught Harding’s eye, did the captain react, laughing sharply and clapping her hands together — not applause, just a single short, loud clap.<br/>“You’ll do,” she said. “But when you’re on the job, less showy, eh?”<br/>Harding bowed in the most flamboyant style they could muster. “I’ll try, captain.”<br/>That startled a laugh out of the captain, and Harding stifled a sigh of relief. The captain stepped up and loomed over them. “It’s Captain Mugora,” she said. “Welcome aboard the Foam-Flower. I’ll have the boatswain find you quarters and take your particulars.” She started to turn away, then paused, glancing over one broad shoulder.<br/>“We don’t condone shipboard brawls,” she said, “and we don’t flog. Much. If you deserve a flogging, you deserve to be set off my ship.” She turned and started away toward the poopdeck. “Have that bruise seen to; if I need a lookout, you’re the backup, and I need two working eyes on my lookouts.”<br/>“Yes, ma’am,” Harding said, then winced and corrected, “Captain.”<br/>Mugora nodded quickly but didn’t look back. “Erghen, get the new rigger fed and shown to a bunk.”</p><p>* * *</p><p>Mugora had been as good as her word. The Foam-Flower was the only ship Harding had served on where they weren’t flogged, and one the few where they didn’t have to fight off (or attempt to fight off) rape.<br/>The Foam-Flower was also a pirate ship.<br/>Harding should’ve guessed. They learned later that pirate vessels tended to have a more democratic approach to crew hierarchy as well as a more pragmatic view of discipline. They had heard that military vessels were the worst, but not being a citizen of any nation, they never had to find out first-hand.<br/>Harding served with Mugora for seven years. They’d have served with her still if she hadn’t taken ill in that cold-water port and died of an ague. Half the crew deserted that night, but Harding waited it out. The first mate, Benn, wasn’t a monster, but he lacked the force of personality to command a pirate crew. Or, probably, any crew, Harding supposed.<br/>The rest of Mugora’s crew, including Harding, leaked away, one by one, in the next few ports. The quartermaster, Erghen, was one of the ones who stayed — unsurprising, since he was the new captain’s husband. He was tougher than any of the crew, and tougher than most captains, so no one made off with more than their share of parting pay.<br/>When Erghen paid out Harding’s share, he closed his big, work-roughened hand over their slender one, and said, “Good luck, Sprig. You keep growing, and keep practicing at that swordplay.” It was Erghen’s stated opinion that Harding had the making of a duelist, though it was Benn who’d tutored them in rapier.<br/>“I will,” Harding said. “I remember the main rule: The best way to win a fight is to get in and out before the other guy knows you’re fighting.”<br/>“The very best way to win is not to fight at all,” Erghen said, his solemn tone belied by a twinkle in his one eye.<br/>Harding had saluted ironically; they’d never saluted any other way, but sometimes they could hide it, at least.<br/>“Good luck, Sprig,” Erghen had said.</p><p>* * *</p><p>Now, a decade later, Harding squinted across the quay. They were different in many ways from the half-beaten starveling Mugora had sent scampering up the rigging. They’d been flogged a half-dozen more times, twice on this last tour alone. They’d gotten much better at dueling, and even had their own rapier, a quality ironwork bought two years back with their gambling winnings in that big port city.<br/>They’d swaggered or earned their way onto one ship after another, some good, some bad, with a series of captains, some competent and some cruel. The Salt Rise wasn’t the worst ship; the crew were mostly practical and not lacking in humor. That lot had liked to gamble, and they didn’t bully any more than most.<br/>But Harding had done with ships and shipboard discipline. Captain Dannella wasn’t sadistic, but she had an iron-bound idea of how things should go, how orders should be carried out, and how crew should behave, from mates to riggers to powder monkeys. And Harding found that, despite every good intention to the contrary, this insistence on protocol and rules made them less likely, not more, to behave.<br/>Hence the stripes, added to the ones they’d earned over the years.<br/>And hence their departure, this bright morning, with a small pouch of gold and silver coins, a haversack of wrapped hardtack, and a belaying pin. The hardtack was a sort of good luck totem, as well as a form of emergency rations; Harding briefly considered refusing it, but they didn’t want to hurt Rory’s feelings. The good-hearted boatswain had a soft spot for Harding.<br/>So their knapsack had enough salt-stained, dry bread to survive on for a while, but Harding had no intention of living off hardtack. They hadn’t been to Ellerain before, but they could see that this port city — not the capital, but the seat of a duchy or some such — bustled with trade and travel.<br/>Trade and travel meant opportunities: Dice, picking pockets, bar bets, back-alley cons. And no flogging. Well, Harding didn’t know anything about the justice system in this town, which looked entirely human and somewhat parochial, but they did know that even the strictest town offered many more places to hide from authority than a ship did.<br/>They took in a deep, rib-stretching breath of air, redolent of salt and pitch and fish, the scent of ports around the world, and stepped lightly down the gangplank.<br/>The heavy belaying pin swung in their left hand. It was standard gear on merchanters, a weighted iron tool that could, in a pinch, serve as a practical weapon as well as to secure the rigging. It was a symbolic bequest, showing that the departing crew member had earned the right to serve on a vessel, and presenting it to a new captain could help ensure a place on a crew, if not an especially lofty place.<br/>Harding had no intention of presenting it to a captain. They loved many things about life at sea. They loved the constant wind, and they loved to climb the rigging. They loved the way sailors learned to communicate with their fellows aboard with eloquent grunts and shrugs, an economy of language that helped them share tasks and avoid officers’ notice alike. They loved eating fish, and they loved watching whales breach.<br/>They did not love saluting, or having to stay in one assigned bunk. They did not love taking orders, or drinking grog, or being grabbed out of that assigned bunk by bigger, stronger crewmates.<br/>It was time for a change of career.<br/>At the bottom of the gangplank, Harding jumped onto the quay with a light step. Before reaching the dockside, they paused and, with a heart as light as their step, dropped the belaying pin into the water.</p>
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